


Book of the Moon

by candlemaker



Series: Forever is a Close and Honest Friend [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dissociation, Excuse the bury your gays trope but there is a war on, Gay Bucky Barnes, Guilt, Heavy Angst, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Readable as a standalone fic, Wartime Romance, World War II, death is not bucky or steve, pre-Steve's arrival in Europe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-04 20:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20477237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candlemaker/pseuds/candlemaker
Summary: In 1929, Bucky Barnes falls in love for the first time and resigns himself to never telling a soul, let alone Steve, the object of his affections. In 1943, half a world away from the man he can never have and fighting for his life and his sanity, something new begins to bloom.





	1. New Moon

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the Forever is a Close and Honest Friend series/verse but you don't need to read that to understand this at all!  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for content warnings.

The ship pulls away from New York in the early hours of the morning. Bucky had said his goodbyes to his Ma and sisters last night before the Stark expo, knowing they wouldn’t be able to handle watching him sail away when there’s a very real chance they may never see each other again – he’s not sure he could have handled it, either. Instead, Steve had accompanied him to the harbour. While other families had wandered away after the ship pulled out, Steve had stayed standing on the boardwalk until the ship was so far out into the ocean that he must have had to strain his eyes to make it out. Bucky had stayed on the deck, staring back at his home, his country and a small pale body wrapped in a too big tattered coat with a mop of messy blonde hair until they were all too small for him to see.

Hours later, he awakens in the cabin below deck where he’s laid top to tail with identically clad soldiers like khaki sardines squeezed into a tin. His sleep thus far has been fretful and sparse, but now the concept of sleeping seems entirely alien to him – how could he, when an overwhelming sense of dread has settled itself on his chest like a body pinning him down? The feeling is one of, for lack of a better term, impending doom. As he fights his way into full consciousness, Bucky thinks something must be wrong with the boat – they’re sinking, perhaps, or caught in the midst of a violent storm. But the cabin is calm and the soldiers on either side of him sleep soundly, blissfully unaware of the ominous pressure pushing down on Bucky from all sides. He stumbles to his feet, tripping over a grumbling Irishman, and makes his way on unsteady sea legs to the stairs that open up onto the deck, where he finds himself alone in the eerie silence.

He has to keep it together - he hasn't broken down since the night he'd received his draft letter. He'd gotten it all out of his system, then, and had remained stoic as he bid goodbye to his weeping mother, confused baby sisters, and - g_od,_ he can't think about Steve right now. Standing on the boardwalk and watching until there was no way he could see the ship, what with his poor eyesight, and then standing and watching some more as if he could _feel _Bucky watching him right back. He had looked so small that Bucky had thanked every god he'd ever heard of that Steve was stuck in New York and not on the boat alongside him, how ever much he wanted to be. 

He'd kept it together as he said his goodbyes to Steve, though Steve himself had looked a little shaky through their all-too-brief hug. If the circumstances weren't so dire, it would almost be funny to Bucky, how Steve had seemed far more upset about their parting than he himself had. After all, Steve was only saying goodbye to his best friend and roommate. 

Bucky was saying goodbye to the love of his life.

The cold air out on deck allows him to breathe a little easier, as if his dread was a gas filling the cabin below and he has finally gotten his head above the cloud. But the feeling of relief doesn’t last as he looks out over the railings and into the inky blackness of the night. They’re so far from home now that he can no longer see the twinkling lights of the New York harbour. He can’t see anything at all beyond the railing, not even the rolling waves or where the ocean meets the sky. Everything beyond the sparsely lit deck of the ship is pure black, like he’s floating on sea-salt slick wooden floorboards through a void of nothingness. All at once, he knows this is wrong.

He has to get off the boat. He simply cannot go.

It’s not what he’s going towards, but what he’s leaving behind. If he dies in some godforsaken French forest, will his mother be able to feed herself and three young girls without working herself to the bone? If his body is blown apart in a bombed-out Italian village, who will run to the pharmacy to get Steve’s medicine when the fever hits him in the night and he doesn’t have the strength to get up? Would their neighbours be able to hear him call for help if he needed it? Would they come? Would Steve even call out – or simply lie there, stubborn as ever, and let his pride kill him?

He has to get off the boat, now. He can’t see the New York lights anymore but they haven’t been travelling for that many hours. He’s a strong swimmer, and he has to try –

His body is clearly looking out for him even as his mind unravels, because his legs go out from under him before he can do something stupid like throw himself overboard. He collapses to the deck in a pathetic heap, limbs shivering in a way that has nothing to do with the cold, and tries not to think about his Ma and Becca and Daisy and Hope and Steve -

But oh god, his sisters are going to starve, and Stevie’s going to _die _and Bucky’s going to be on the other side of the world and he won’t even know-

“- okay?” Someone is saying from across the deck, striding towards him with purpose, “You look a little pale, should I-“

He can’t hear, can’t see – it’s as if all his senses have abandoned him and his body is devoting all its energy to trying to get some air into his heaving lungs. His hands are shaking violently and his legs feel weak, like if he weren’t already sitting down he’d flop straight overboard. His lungs don’t seem to be cooperating, refusing to take in any air no matter how quickly he wheezes in rapid breaths. He’s outside, with nothing but salty air constraining him for miles and miles, but he feels claustrophobic, as if the non-existent walls are closing in on him.

In his peripheral vision, Bucky sees a large hand coming towards him, and braces himself for the sharp slap that will snap him out of his hysteria – but it never comes. Instead, a warm hand finds its way to the back of his neck, and just holds him in place, not choking or pushing or scratching, but simply _there_. He suddenly can’t remember the last time he had hands on him that weren't demanding anything from him.

The other man is speaking, and it takes a good few minutes for Bucky to be able to hear it over the roaring of blood in his ears and the waves below them. He’s counting, gulping an exaggerated breath in and out every now and then as if Bucky has simply forgotten how to breathe and needs a practical demonstration. He wants to be annoyed, but he can’t, not when it’s working. Bucky breathes in when the soldier does, and listens to his quiet, steady counting, exhaling when he reaches nine and then starting again until his breathing feels almost natural again.

“What’s your name? We haven’t met,” the man asks as if he can sense that Bucky has finally calmed down enough to form words. He’s fixing Bucky with a stare that is entirely too intense, but at the same time undemanding, wide green eyes fixing him in place but holding no malice or expectations.

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, 32557038,” He snaps instinctively, as though replying to an enquiring superior officer. Upon remembering where he is, he adds a hesitant; “Bucky.”

“Bucky,” the man echoes as though savouring the way the name feels in his mouth.

“Corporal Daniel Walter Cohen, 35679171. Danny,” The man, Danny, adds, shooting Bucky a sly smile that should feel mocking, but doesn’t.

Now his vision has stopped swimming and his hands are shaking a little less violently, Bucky can examine the man in front of him properly. His first clear thought is of how handsome the other soldier is, and he has to mentally slap himself down like a dog jumping on the expensive furniture. _Not here. Keep a lid on it._

It’s true, though. His dark brown hair is sheared into the fresh buzz cut that Bucky’s regiment has so far somehow managed to escape, but the ends curl a little like it’ll spring out in all directions once it’s allowed to grow free. The short cut highlights his strong, chiselled jaw and sharp cheekbones, and in this light he looks like a young Errol Flynn. His eyes are not the clear ocean blue of Steve or the deep chocolate brown of his new friend Gabe from the 107th; but a startlingly pure green that reminds Bucky of lying on his back in Central Park, staring up at the black cherry trees and feeling the summer sun rest gently on his skin.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out quietly, suddenly feeling far too young and stupid and embarrassed. They’re all going to war, for god’s sake. They’re all leaving their families behind. Most of them aren’t coming back, and they all know it. Danny is likely just as terrified and upset as he is, but has admirably managed to keep his shit together while Bucky falls apart - and now has to spend his first night away from his family comforting some hyperventilating idiot at 3 in the morning.

But Danny doesn’t look annoyed, just a little concerned.

“Hey,” he says gently, in the same voice Bucky uses to talk to his youngest sister, and _god, _that should piss him off too but it seems he just can’t get mad at this guy – not when his hand is still a comforting presence on the back of his neck. “Shit’s scary. You think I’m not terrified, here? It’s okay to panic a little. We all are.”

It’s a sweet sentiment, and probably true, but Bucky can’t help but look around at the empty deck sceptically. He’s the only one up here having a breakdown, after all. Danny huffs out a small laugh as he follows the progress of Bucky’s gaze over the empty deck as if he can tell what he’s thinking.

“I’m up here too,” He says pointedly, “Couldn’t sleep either. Nightmares. My Ma getting my dog tags in the mail, having to tell my brother that I ain’t coming home…”

A fellow soldier showing such raw vulnerability and openly admitting to weakness makes Bucky feel dizzy. The knowledge that Danny is laying himself low to put himself on a somewhat equal level with Bucky’s pathetic, anxiety-ridden form makes his blood flow quicker, and his cheeks feel warm. It’s so unlike the pointlessly macho, stoic, emotionless persona that is beaten into them in basic training that he almost forgets where they are, and where they’re headed.

But there’s a sound to their left, footsteps on the cabin stairs, and suddenly they’re both painfully aware of their position: crouched on the deck together, heads so close their foreheads are almost pressed against each other, with Danny’s hand still warm against his nape. They untangle themselves quickly, but with a reluctance Bucky believes he senses in Danny’s movements, too, and Danny helps him stand on unsteady legs.

“Thank you,” he tells the other man, and it feels like he’s said too little and too much all at once. Danny opens his mouth to say something, hands having not yet released Bucky’s elbows from where he grabbed them to help him up, but the sea-sick soldier who throws himself out onto the deck to vomit violently over the railing breaks the moment in twain. Danny shoots him one last soft smile as he finally lets Bucky go, and they retreat silently to their separate sleeping quarters without speaking another word. Stumbling towards his sleeping bag in the dark, Bucky feels like the sleep that so cruelly rejected him earlier than night might come a little easier, now.

* * *

In the coming days, he and Danny bump into each other a handful more times, despite their sleeping quarters being on opposite ends of the ship. He learns a few things about the other man in the quiet conversations on the deck that seem to become a nightly ritual between them. He grew up in a farming town in rural Kentucky with his grandparents, his Ma, and his younger brother Patrick – too young to enlist, luckily. His Pa died in the Great War, just like Steve’s. His grandpa taught him how to play the guitar, and his grandma taught him how to ride a horse.

In return, Bucky tells him about what he’s left behind. The things he won’t miss (a dead-end job, unpaid bills, a kitchen full of rats) and the things he will; an ageing mother, three young sisters, a sickly roommate. It hurts a little to relegate all that Steve is to him to the status of ‘roommate’, but if he were to start waxing lyrical about exactly what Steve means to him, and has meant to him his whole life, his fellow soldiers might get suspicious.

It’s tempting, sometimes. To let something slip, casually, or to simply walk up to his commanding officer, an ugly balding old man, and kiss him straight on the lips. To say _I was queer all along, and you don’t want my kind here, so send me back_. He didn’t admit to what he is when he first got the draft letter, though, so it’s a little too late now. He doesn’t want to go to war, of course. He doesn’t want to kill anyone, and most of the time he doesn’t want to die, either. But the thought of marching back into their Brooklyn apartment clutching a blue slip and explaining that he isn’t fighting the war Steve so desperately craves to be a part of because he’s queer is so, so much worse than facing down the barrel of a gun. He knows the disgusted look on Stevie’s face would shatter him in a way that no bullet or bomb ever could.

So he tells Danny about his roommate, his childhood friend, and nothing more, though Bucky has the strangest feeling there is a spark of understanding behind those kind green eyes. When the ship finally docks in England, their regiments are given different orders, and they’ll likely never see each other again. It doesn’t really matter. They were only talking; quiet little conversations about safe, surface topics when sleep eluded them both and the tides were too strong to sit idly in the cabin.

But those soft viridescent eyes stay with him, and when he jerks awake in the middle of the night, he swears he can feel a warm hand on the back of his neck as he drifts back down into sleep.

* * *

Their shore leave in England isn’t long – they have just enough time to recover from their seasickness and then make themselves sick all over again by blowing their meagre paychecks on cheap beer in the local pubs. But even bombed out, dark and frightened, London is beautiful.

France isn’t.

It could be, he’s sure. It probably was a few years ago. He’s seen postcards and paintings in abandoned farmhouses of idyllic countryside, fairy tale forests full of wildflowers and sweet chocolate box villages. But the France they piled into off the boat is a shell of its former self. The once beautiful countryside has been razed into a wasteland of barbed wire and debris. Where there are people, they are untrusting, hollowed out, vacant. Bucky has never been _glad _for Stevie’s poor health, but knowing he’ll never have to see the haunted look of the French people in Steve’s eyes, safe as he is half a world away, gets him pretty damn close.

They don’t really get to do much sightseeing, although it doesn’t seem as though there is much left standing to see. The sights are familiar and repetitive as they make their way to the front lines; the grey of the English Channel as the ferry ships them over, the wheels of a Jeep slugging through thick mud, the inside of yet another khaki tent. By the time they’re crouched in their assigned trench, it’s almost a relief to look out onto the barren expanse of No Man’s Land. At least it’s something different.

The night before their first fight – their first kills - is restless. An ominous knowing sits heavy on the chest of every man called up, as if they’re sleeping in the shadow of Pompeii. Not all of the men are new, and though none are immune to the undercurrent of anxiety that washes over them all, the experience of those who have fought before is obvious. They handle their weapons with steady, sure hands, perceptive eyes fixed on the horizon and watching constantly for movement. Their shoulders are loose without the borderline hysteria that is bubbling beneath the surface of the new recruits.

Bucky tries to imitate their stance, painfully aware of his rank and the expectant eyes on him, but he feels like a child being forced into his father’s suit to go to church, drowning in fabric. The shoes are too big, and though he tries to fill them, the eyes that constantly follow him and size him up find him wanting every time. A few chevrons on his arm are all that separates him from the fresh young blood that look to him, scared and confused, for guidance.

His hands are shaking. When he picks up his rifle, they stop.

His first kill is anti-climactic, really. He calls it that in his head – his first kill – although he knows that’s not what it is, really. Maybe that’s why it makes so little impact on him. He carefully doesn’t think of his father, furious fists bearing down on his younger self, spitting venom with his mother’s blood still fresh on his broken knuckles. He doesn’t think of the hands around his throat and the desperation with which he’d shoved the bigger man, unwilling to give in and leave his sisters unprotected in this world – or in that house. He doesn’t think about the corner of the coffee table, or the blood soaking into the carpet. He hadn’t meant to, but he’s not sorry that it happened.

He doesn’t think about it, and he calls this his first kill.

It’s a good shot, all things considered. A bullet meets a pale forehead, just below a standard-issue steel helmet, just above the eyes. He’s too far away to see what colour they are, and he’s glad. He wonders if his mother will be able to see it in his eyes – that he has taken lives. He wonders if Steve will recognise him when he gets back to Brooklyn. _If_ he gets back to Brooklyn.

He feels a rush of something – adrenaline, perhaps. His muscles and bones are vibrating beneath his skin, but his hands stay perpetually steady on his rifle. When he pulls one away to wipe the mud from his face, it shakes. When it resettles on the barrel of his gun, it’s steady again. Beside him, a young man is retching into the dirt – perhaps from his own kill, or perhaps from witnessing Bucky’s. Bucky doesn’t feel sick. He doesn’t feel much of anything.

But crucially, he doesn’t feel happy, or proud, or ecstatic, and it comes as a relief. Numbness is not necessarily the reaction he should be having if the shattered faces of his comrades are anything to judge by. But he didn’t enjoy it – killing. It just felt like nothing at all.

After the first firefight, they aren’t given time to recover. They’re given no time to adjust at all, in fact. This part of France is desperately in need of additional troops, and they’re immediately thrown further into the fray to fill in the gaps in the front lines. They’re told _hold our position_ as if that is something foot soldiers like Bucky have any control over. What their superiors actually mean is _kill as many of them as you can before they kill you_. That’s the only thing they can really do.

And Bucky does. He’d been pegged as a sharpshooter in basic training – it’s one of the reasons, along with his affinity for convincing his fellow soldiers to listen to him and his tactical mind, that he’d been advanced through the ranks with startling speed. Such a young Sergeant, with no prior experience, is almost unheard of. Any doubts or snide comments the other men have about how exactly he achieved his title are quickly put to bed when they see him shoot.

He’s spent years watching Steve’s innate artistic talent grow as he put pen to paper, and listening to Steve’s Ma command the organ at the Roger’s church like it was built specifically for her, or cheering on Becca as she takes to any sport she tries in the schoolyard like a fish to water. He had waited for his own talent to emerge for a long time, but had eventually given up - after all, there can't be something special about everyone. In a way, it’s a relief to find that he _does_ have a talent after all. It’s just a shame that his talent appears to be killing people.

Today, their firefight had been mercifully brief, but bloody. They’d lost 3 men from Bucky’s regiment – Bucky can’t bring himself to care or keep track of anyone outside the 107th, though the other units had likely suffered casualties, too. Morale is surprisingly high, however; it’s not always easy to tell, but it seems the Germans had come out of this one worse.

The aftermath of the fight finds him sitting on a crate outside the medical tent where some of his boys are being patched up. He's counting his kills, carving a small tally into the butt of his rifle with his father’s old penknife, but he's not sure why – he’s certainly not proud of them. It’s not that he needs to know the number, necessarily; it’s that he needs to _know_ that he knows. The day he wakes up unable to tell how many lives he’s taken, he’ll know that he’s crossed a line, journeyed too far from the boy he used to be to ever return to Brooklyn and put his arm around Stevie and hold his baby sister like nothing’s changed.

A week into their time on the Western Front, and he’s already up to 13. 7 are from today; 3 in the chest, 1 in the neck and 3 headshots. He tries to make it clean – his aim’s good enough now that he has a choice, unlike his fellow soldiers who fire blindly into enemy lines, hoping a few bullets will meet a body before a few bullets meet their own.

“Good work out there,” a mud-covered soldier tells him amicably with a lopsided smile, ducking out from a neighbouring tent to approach him. It makes Bucky’s blood run hot, flushing a little under the praise but mostly under his sudden, inexplicable anger.

He doesn’t want to be good at this. He doesn’t want this soldier’s commendation. He doesn’t want to be a prodigy at putting bullets between the eyes of boys who are just doing what he’s doing: following orders, swallowing propaganda, shooting in the direction they’re pointed. He didn’t want to kill anyone in the first place, for god’s sake. How can this man stand before him and say _good work out there_ as if murdering young men with no more choice than they have is worthy of praise?

His anger (at himself, at this soldier, at his superiors, at the whole fucking war) must show on his face, because the soldier visibly recoils, taking a whole step backwards as if that will save him from Bucky’s wrath. It’s only when he steps backwards into the light that Bucky recognises him, soaked head to toe in mud as he is: Danny, the soldier he met on the boat. The one who had placed a gentle hand on the back of Bucky’s neck and breathed with him in the dark, and had never told another soul about his near breakdown.

All the fight goes out of him at once, and that must show, too, because Danny stops in his hasty retreat backwards and looks at Bucky warily with sea-green eyes narrowed.

“I meant-“ he starts, but Bucky doesn’t really care what he meant, and it doesn’t really matter now, anyway.

“It’s fine. Thanks,” he tells Danny, watching the other man’s shoulders slump with relief once it becomes clear he hasn’t irreparably offended Bucky. There is a long moment of awkward silence that finds each of them occupied with pointless fidgeting; Danny rocking back on his heels and examining the wildflowers under his boots with the interest of a botanist but without a lick of the knowledge, and Bucky flicking his father’s rusty penknife open and closed to a beat only he can hear.

When they speak again, it’s simultaneously.

“What was your-“

“Do you want to-“

Both huff out an uncomfortable laugh and Bucky waves the knife through the air in a little gesture he hopes translates as _you go first_.

“I was going to, I mean, do you want –“ Danny begins, suddenly nervous and stumbling over his words in a way that makes Bucky’s heart beat a little faster. It’s disturbingly close to the way that Steve would mumble and mutter when Bucky pushed him to talk to a girl on one of their double dates, wanting to connect but unsure of how he would be received, “Um, dinner’s up. I’m gonna grab a plate, if you – come with me? If you want to, I mean. Yeah.”

_Holy shit,_ Bucky thinks, _they’re gonna eat him alive_. Danny’s stuttering like he’s asking out the prettiest girl at the dancehall, and the longer Bucky stays silent and looks up at him through his eyelashes, the deeper Danny’s honest to god _blush_ becomes. They’re lucky the few other soldiers braving the cold for a cigarette aren’t within hearing distance, because Danny’s reading _queer _like a neon sign. He’s sure a few of the men have got some theories about Bucky, too; he’s never been needlessly macho in his behaviour and movements like some of these guys, he never talks about his girl back home, and he knows he’s pretty. If Bucky were smart, he would quietly shoot the guy down right now, tell him to tone it down a little, before anyone else comes to the wrong conclusion about them and they get sent packing with a dishonourable discharge, or worse. But the attention and quiet hope in those big green eyes begins to thaw the ice that had settled in his bones as soon as he has set foot on European soil, and he can’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he closes his knife with a practised flick and tucks it away in his boot as he stands. They’re quiet as they walk to the mess hall, matching steps like they’re on the march again, and when they reach it, Danny pulls the flap of the tent back for him to enter like he’s holding the dancehall door open for a dame.

It feels - it feels nice. Misplaced, in the middle of a war zone, with eyes all around and threats coming from their own ranks just as they come from outside. But it feels _nice, _damn it, can't he just have this one thing? Tonight, he'll let Danny stand a little too close, and blush when he manages to make Bucky laugh, and stare a little too long when Bucky brings his cigarette up to his lips.Tomorrow, he'll let him down gently, tell him it's too dangerous to start some pointless queer fling in the den of wolves their living in. Tomorrow, he'll send Danny away.

He's sure he will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky briefly thinks about domestic abuse he suffered from his father, accidentally killing his father, period-typical homophobia (much of which is internalised), and selling himself to pay for Steve's medicine/their rent, which began when he was 17. Very brief and vague suicidal ideation. None of these subjects are dealt with in a particularly graphic or substantial way, but still, read at your own risk. The major death is not Bucky, Gabe or Dugan (or Steve, who isn't actually in this fic).


	2. Waxing Crescent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for content warnings.

There are several things about himself that Bucky has known since he truly understood what knowing was. He is different than the other men around him. He would kill for each of his sisters. There is something insidious (a killer, he now knows) hidden inside of him. He is hopelessly in love with Steve Rogers. He is weak.

He is weak, and he doesn’t send Danny away.

The knowledge that he is consciously letting this thing between them blossom instead of pulling it out at the roots weighs heavy on his shoulders. He should know better, and yet.

They settle into a comfortable routine over the next few weeks – or as comfortable as they can get in the current circumstances, anyway.

In the mornings, he tries to make sure than Danny’s wide green eyes are the first thing he really sees, seeking him out amongst the zombie-like, half-awake men collecting their watered-down coffee and powdered egg rations. Without fail, Danny will shoot him a grin that makes him weak at the knees, and kick his foot companionably when Bucky sits down opposite him with his own meagre breakfast.

In the afternoons, they march or fight or haul supplies, but always try and stay within each other’s line of sight, smiling about nothing in particular every time their eyes happen to meet. It’s sickening, really – he feels like Becca must have when that boy she liked had given her a handful of daffodils he had collected one spring morning. Bucky knows that same embarrassed-but-enamoured look that had made him laugh at his sister affectionately is painted across his own face.

In the evenings, when it is needed, the pair will collect firewood. The other men no longer need to ask for volunteers; it seems to have become an unspoken rule that Danny and Bucky will take on the job. They don’t have long – their paranoia probably makes them come back a little quicker than they should, if anything – but this is by far Bucky’s favourite part of their routine. They walk, three feet apart, until the sounds of their respective units back at camp fade away and only the quiet stillness of the forest remains. And then they’re alone; the only time they are ever truly alone these days.

At dusk, when the rain that feels constant and relentless finally eases off, Bucky will perch himself on a barrel or fallen log on the edge of their camp, and smoke. Danny doesn’t smoke - he just watches Bucky in the soft moonlight as they share quiet stories of their families and childhoods. He had tried, once; had taken the cigarette from Bucky’s hand when he had been offered it and had bought it to his lips with misplaced confidence. Danny had ended up coughing and choking so hard it had woken Dugan from his slumber in the tent behind them – or perhaps Bucky’s howling laughter had done that. All of a sudden, Bucky had remembered Steve doing the exact same thing late in the evening on their shitty Brooklyn balcony, and the thought had sobered him more than the cold or the watchful eyes that surrounded them ever could. Any thought which contains both Danny and Steve, or worst of all, compares the two, makes him wildly uncomfortable for reasons he hasn’t quite deciphered yet, and must be quickly banished from his mind.

At night, they bunk down where they can find room in their cramped tents, pressed up against half a dozen other soldiers. Sometimes, if they are lucky, there will be no one between them – and in the stillness of the night, protected by darkness, Danny will tangle their fingers together between their sleeping bags, where no one can see. Bucky will wait and listen until Danny’s breathing becomes steady with sleep, and then forces himself to untangle their hands before he too drifts off to sleep. It hurts to do so, but the consequences of the other men waking up before them are too great to risk it.

They don’t spend all of their time together, to avoid going stir-crazy as much as to avoid the suspicion being join at the hip would bring them. There are others, too, that they have grown close to; that they know will have their back just as they have each other’s. For Danny, it’s a boy in his unit so young that he must surely have lied on his enlistment form, and a man almost too elderly to be there who refers to everyone, no matter their age, as ‘son’. For Bucky, it’s two of his most loyal boys from the 107th: Gabriel Jones and Timothy Dugan. All of them misfits; a little strange, a little out of place, but looking out for each other like family nonetheless.

He thinks, perhaps, Gabe knows. The man is rapidly becoming his closest ally in Europe – not his best friend, as childish as it is, that’s reserved for Stevie – besides Danny, of course. No one’s quite sure how he ended up in a white unit, but with his near-perfect French and German and skill with a radio, even the most racist officers are hesitant to try and get rid of him. He’s still the victim of a disturbing amount of snide comments, hateful words and sometimes even physical violence – though all three have rapidly decreased since Bucky shoved the asshole who had dared insult Gabe in front of him into their campfire.

They feel like kindred spirits, in a way, he and Gabe. Their plights are not the same – he, for one, can hide the thing he is persecuted for, whereas Gabe can never escape those who would look down on him and wish him ill. But all these men would do them ill if they caught them alone on a dark night, and neither of them are truly meant to be there, different as they are. They stick together, although Bucky has been sure until recently that Gabe hadn’t known _why_ Bucky had fallen in with him and stuck to his side so firmly. But sometimes he finds Gabe watching them as he and Danny share a water bottle, or cigarette, or joke. There’s a knowing gleam in his eye, and a small smirk on his face that looks a little like pride. If he knows, he’s not saying, and Bucky trusts that Gabe won’t rat them out.

* * *

It’s simple, is the thing, with Danny. It shouldn’t be – they’re two men, a Jew and a godless Irish boy, in the middle of the bloodiest war the world has ever seen. Everyone and everything is out to get them, and every day could be their last.

But it’s _simple_, and easy. There’s no pressure or expectations; they’re practically strangers, and if it doesn’t work out it doesn’t matter – they’ll both likely be dead by the end of the year, anyway. What is there to lose?

There is a quiet understanding between them, underwritten by a tension and attraction that has them drawing together again and again like magnets. There is no need for complicated, stilted _what are _we talks. They simply are; two soldiers, two warm bodies, two fragile hearts seeking comfort and companionship. There’s none of the fear of rejection and disgust that had stopped Bucky ever admitting how he felt to Steve - Danny’s interest in him is entirely obvious. A little too obvious, for where they are, and Bucky is working overtime trying to cover their tracks to keep them both safe.

But for all it puts them in danger, the way Danny looks at him makes him feel warm and wanted. Pretty. Desirable, even, but not like the men in the darkest corners of the queer bars in the village, or the fellas in the alleyways beside the harbour when he can’t make rent and gets real desperate. They hadn’t wanted _him,_ not really, just his body or his mouth or his warmth, for a little while. They simply had a use for him.

Everyone has a use for him.

The old boxing coach at the YMCA who wanted the glory of his youth back, even if he had to live vicariously through someone else. Men in back alleys with cash in their pockets and a desire to get out of their head for the night. The officers during basic training, though their use for him had evolved as they had watched him grow into his role as a soldier, and had changed forever the first time he got his hands on a rifle and revealed himself to be a talented marksman. The speed with which he had gone from totally expendable cannon fodder to an only slightly expendable asset in the eyes of his superiors had given him whiplash.

Even his family, though they loved him unconditionally, had uses for him; for his sisters, he was an additional parent, babysitter, teacher. For his mother, he was another paycheck and an extra pair of hands to pick up the slack when life was overwhelming. For his father, he had been the public face of the family when his father’s war injuries and violent mood swings kept him cooped up inside and subject to rumours around the neighbourhood. His son could maintain the Barnes’ dignity in his stead, as a straight-A student, an athlete, a charming gentleman, a hard worker and a polite, dedicated son. Even Steve used him from time to time, though Bucky never resented him for it and he used Steve right back. Steve could push himself to the limit, ignoring the beginnings of sickness, because he knew that Bucky would drop everything to care for him, bring him medicine, swathe him in blankets. Steve could pick a fight with anyone he felt like getting on the wrong side of because he knew Bucky would be there to fight his corner and pull him out of it, or at least patch up his wounds afterwards. Steve could consistently afford let himself get beaten up or sick because he knew that Bucky would always find a way to pay their rent and keep them from starving. As someone who militantly refused any semblance of help or charity, Steve can’t possibly have realised he was doing it; relying on Bucky like an extra limb, subconsciously easing some of the immense burden life had dealt him onto Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky never minded, though. He wanted to help, wanted Steve to be as sure of Bucky’s presence and devotion as he was of the sun coming up in the morning. After all, Bucky relied on Steve, too.

But sometimes, pulled between his many different uses, he feels like a Swiss army knife – a series of tools with varying usefulness held together by a small screw. Remove that and you’re left with an empty shell. His skill set is varied enough to provide some use to whoever picks him up, even if he will eventually be discarded in favour of a more specialised tool when they realise his limitations. But he’s adaptable, at least; he’d call himself a chameleon, but every use he can provide still finds him in the same body, with the same lot in life: poor, queer, rough-around-the-edges Brooklyn trash.

Danny, though, is different. Danny's attraction to him doesn't seem to centre around his looks, or his body, or his ability to kill, although it is based a little bit on all of those things. He catches Danny admiring his lips and eyes and hands out of the corner of his eye, a little too obvious for their position but flattering none the less. He knows Danny thinks he’s funny, for whatever reason, and he’s often left in awe of Bucky’s skill with a rifle. But he doesn’t want anything in particular. If he has a use in mind for Bucky, Bucky hasn’t figured out what it is yet.

Not that he'd be good for much these days, if Danny did have a use for him. He's been losing time, recently, though it doesn't really concern him as much as it probably should. If his brain wants to take a little vacation in the middle of a freezing monotonous march or when they have to drag the bodies of his comrades off the battlefield to be buried, it's fine by him. As long as his body keeps working, he doesn't really have to be present. Sometimes hours can go by where he is removed from his body while his hands carry out his work through muscle memory alone. His bones no longer need him to march or clean weapons or set up a tent. He can blink and awaken in a new camp or city or country with only blackness in between. Going away has been a defence mechanism he's been able to pull down around himself at will for a while now, retreating into his mind when the pain or shame gets too much for him to bear. But it's never been something that happens to him without his consent before. It's like his mind is working overtime to protect him from everything going on around him, and has resorted to just removing him from the situation entirely. 

At least, now, every time he goes away, he comes back to himself to find Danny watching him, always too perceptive when it comes to Bucky.

"You with me?" He'll say in a soft voice, searching Bucky's eyes for all the things he can't say aloud. He doesn't call him crazy, or tell their superiors the danger he is putting them all in by checking out like that. He doesn't ask for anything in return for the comfort and stability he provides. He makes Bucky want to stop disappearing into himself, even in the hell they're living in. Danny makes him want to stay, and make the most of every little moment they have, ever snatched second they get of privacy where they can be themselves, together. 

He tries to keep his distance, emotionally. _God, _he tries. But there's so little that is truly _good_ in his life these days, and the kindness and affection Danny radiates draws him in like a moth to a flame, and he just can't stay away.

* * *

The thing that is building between them goes unspoken, most of the time, existing only as too-long touches and fleeting, heated glances, and a friendship that has sprung up too quickly and too fiercely to be entirely platonic.

It’s almost a month into their time on the Western Front when the tension that has been building between them finally breaks like an overburdened dam. Their two units are both substantially smaller than they had been when they had first arrived in France, suffering loss after loss, and are now almost always paired together as one pseudo-unit. Bucky feels guilty for being happy about the arrangement, knowing it has only come about due to the deaths of many good young men from the 100th and 107th, but he can’t deny he’s happy being in such close proximity to Danny. The threat of death that looms over them like a dark cloud during every fight is oppressive, but having Danny in his line of sight while bullets rain down on them makes it almost bearable. In a way, he’s used to it – he’s spent the last decade constantly prepared for Steve’s newest illness to be the one that claims his life and takes him away from Bucky forever. Sometimes, trying to fight the fevers and flu that would wrack Steve’s small body felt as much like being at war as this does.

But it’s the danger that does it – that pushes their quiet, highly charged companionship into something more substantial. They had been providing covering fire to retreating troops – a simple task, and with sufficient barricade cover, they were in minimal danger provided a stray grenade didn’t come their way. But the retreating troops weren’t so lucky. Their information said artillery was heading their way, and if they didn’t get out fast, they’d meet it head-on. They had fled from their position like rats from a burning building, the smart ones ducking and weaving to avoid the German snipers who surely must have been waiting in anticipation of their surfacing. Others had relied on speed instead, believing that a straight line would be fine as long as they were fast enough.

The young boy running straight at Bucky and Danny’s position _almost_ makes it. He’d been alternating between the two techniques; short bursts of speed until he could find cover, then ducking behind anything that would shield him from enemy fire. In the final stretch before crossing into relative safety, he’d hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. A bullet to the left ankle; not life-threatening if they could prevent it from getting infected, but enough to leave him flat on his front and struggling to get back to his feet, with German rifles trained on him from across the forest.

When the constant loop of _what would Steve do_ that runs through his head at all times these days had offered up a suggestion, Bucky had thrown caution to the wind and heeded it. He had hauled himself out from behind their sandbag barricades, crawling with as much speed as he could muster while remaining as small a target as possible, and had dragged the boy back towards Allied lines, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. He trusted his boys to cover him, but in that moment he’d been completely exposed – if any of the Germans across the field for them were half-decent shots, he’d have been dead in an instant.

When he’d pulled the both of them to safety, Gabe had given him a somewhat proud, somewhat exasperated look, and Dugan had smacked him upside the head and asked if he had a death wish. But Danny –

Danny, in the brief moment where he met Bucky’s eye before he decided he simply couldn’t look at him, had looked like someone had punched him.

Danny had kept his distance as the fight wound down and they retreated with their wounded to their makeshift camp. When Bucky had stood from the fire and announced he was going to get more wood, he had been convinced Danny was going to remain seated. But as he walked further into the forest and away from prying eyes and ears, he had heard the tell-tale crunch of leaves under boots behind him.

When Danny rounds on him, it scares him, just for a second, flashing back to bigger men with worse intentions squaring up to him like this. But Danny isn’t looking for a fight – his hands on Bucky’s elbows are simply holding, not pushing or pulling, and there’s no aggression in his stance.

“_Bucky_,” he says desperately, “You can’t – you can’t _do that_.”

His tone is frantic, and in his exhaustion, Bucky struggles to identify it – it’s not quite anger like Dugan, or exasperation like Gabe, no, it sounds more like –

Fear.

The look on Danny’s face as he pleads with Bucky confirms it. He’s scared – not _of _Bucky like some of the other men seem to be, these days, but _for _him. He’s scared of losing him.

“That was reckless and stupid, and you could have - I can’t watch you – “ Danny loses what little composure he has, trailing off with a mournful sound, and Bucky can’t feel anything but guilt at causing the pain in those green eyes. He knows what it feels like to watch someone you care about (he can’t say love, not this early) put themselves in danger again and again like they aren’t worth anything. He never wanted to make Danny feel that same helpless desperation that he himself has felt watching Steve so many times. He thinks of the situation reversed, of Danny throwing himself into enemy fire like an idiot while he can only watch, frozen at the sidelines, and swallows down a sudden pang of sickness.

Instead, he places his shaking hands on either side of Danny’s face, cupping his strong jaw in his palms and brushing a thumb gently across his lips. It shuts Danny up almost immediately and his eyes go wide and_ god, _he’s beautiful. It makes Bucky feel like he’s going crazy, how much he wants to banish the hurt in Danny’s eyes. He wants to go back in time and shake himself before he puts himself in danger, for Danny’s sake. He wants to know what could make this better, could stop Danny looking scared and tired and sad, and put the secret little smile reserved just for him back on his handsome face.

He doesn’t even look around to check that no one has followed them before he leans in and kisses him.

It’s hardly his first kiss, but it’s the first time he’s ever kissed someone without it being the first step towards something else. He’s kissed because he needs to prove he isn’t queer, because he needs cash, because he’s lonely and he wants someone to touch him, even if they’re rough and impersonal. He’s not sure he’s ever kissed someone that he genuinely _wanted _to kiss before. 

It’s not perfect. Both of their lips are chapped and their noses are startlingly cold where they brush against each other. They ran out of toothpaste two days ago, and the stubble that is growing along both their jaws creates an uncomfortable burning friction between them. But it’s by far the best kiss Bucky has ever had. He moves one hand from Danny’s chiselled jaw to push through the dark brown strands at the top of his neck, longer now than when they met, as Danny kisses back with vigour. He should have checked that the coast was clear before he started this – even far from camp like this, it’s dangerous – but _god,_ there’s no way he can stop now.

The feeling of wishing they weren’t here - in Europe, in the middle of a war they cannot possibly win - has been a constant niggling presence in the back of his mind since they met. But as Danny puts a strong arm around Bucky’s slim waist and pulls their bodies flush against each other it returns to him with a startling intensity. He wants to run away and return to the safety of Brooklyn with Danny so badly he could sob with it. Instead, he clings on to Danny with sudden desperation and is elated to find Danny clinging right back, balling a fist into the lapel of Bucky’s uniform and sliding his tongue into Bucky’s mouth with only a little nervous hesitation.

The distinct sound of a branch snapping from just over Bucky’s shoulder shocks them both out of their reverie, sending a jolt of visceral fear down both their spines. Every instinct in his body tells him to throw himself away from Danny, or to feign some kind of injury, or to throw a punch at him; anything to make it look like they weren’t making out like teenagers in the woods. But he doesn’t bother. There’s no point doing more than letting his hands fall away from Danny’s skin. The sound of the branch snapping had been far too close – whoever has found them has already seen too much to pretend they are anything other than exactly what they are. He hesitates to turn around, not willing to pull his forehead away from where he has let it fall into the crook of Danny’s shoulder, and not willing to see whoever Danny is looking at behind him.

Will it be someone they had trusted? Will they look horrified, disgusted, angry? Will they already have their gun raised?

“Bucky,” Danny breathes from above him, and it startles Bucky more than the branch snapping did to hear that Danny doesn’t sound scared, or upset at being caught. Instead, he sounds almost reverent.

He lets Danny turn him using both hands on his hips, and holds his breath as he opens his eyes and sees what had disturbed their most private moment.

It’s a deer, a beautiful pale brown doe with a smattering of pale white dots across her back and she’s looking _right at them_. Her big brown eyes are looking directly into Bucky’s, and to his surprise, she doesn’t look scared. She simply stands and watches them as they do the same to her, in awe of her beauty and presence in the otherwise silent forest. The animals, always a little smarter and more perceptive than humans, have long since fled this war-torn land. They barely see birds, these days, and he knows that the eerie lifelessness of the forests bothers Danny, who has lived around animals his entire life, in particular. He’s not sure how she survived out here all alone, especially since she doesn’t seem particularly scared of humans – she’s barely 10 foot from them, after all. 

Bucky laughs quietly in something approaching disbelief as they watch the doe slowly amble away from them through the forest on spindly but sure legs. Wrapping an arm around Bucky’s middle once again, Danny drops a gentle kiss to his neck, just below the ear, before placing his chin on top of Bucky’s messy mop of hair. There isn’t a great height difference between them, but he fits perfectly in Danny’s arms, in a way he had once imagined Steve would fit in his.

They stand like that until the doe is out of sight, and then stand for just a little longer, soaking up each other’s body heat, the stress of earlier now forgotten. It feels like the creature had been something sent just for them to see; a bright golden thread of beauty in the tapestry of blood and death that has become their day to day existence. Bucky feels a new lightness in his chest, like a weight has been lifted from him, just slightly. He’s not sure how some lost deer that was too stupid to flee when the rest of the animals did has done it, but he feels for perhaps the first time since he boarded the ship to Europe that he might live to see the end of the war.

Bucky doesn’t believe in omens, but he thinks this must be a good one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obvious references to war, violence, death, etc, it being WWII and all. Heaps of internalised homophobia as was typical of the period. Brief references to prostitution that Bucky was engaged in. And very brief, non-explicit references to period-typical racist and anti-Semitic attitudes.  
Additional Thoughts: I’m fascinated by the idea of Bucky feeling a lot of the things he would surely feel after being the Winter Soldier, e.g. being nothing but an object put to use, good at nothing but killing, before he ever becomes the Soldier. I think HYDRA would have preyed on those thoughts to mould him, and ingrained them from stray self-deprecating ideas to core aspects of his being and understanding of himself. Much like Erskine’s serum took what was inside and exaggerated it (e.g. Steve’s goodness and bravery), Zola’s serum did the same – Bucky was such a good candidate for the Winter Soldier because the foundations of low self-worth and identity issues were already there to be further abused.


	3. Full Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for content warnings.

For all Bucky doesn’t believe in omens, their brief encounter in the woods has been followed by a run of suspiciously good luck. In the following days, they don’t lose a single man through several firefights. They find an extra square of chocolate unexpectedly in their ration packs. The overpaid, underqualified officer they all hate the most trips over a tree root and breaks his ankle, and is send back to London to recuperate, freeing them from his stupidity. A spell of rain means he and Danny can spend even longer than usual alone in the woods looking for dry wood to build a fire, without anyone getting suspicious.

Just under a week later, they’re even sent back to one of the larger bases, with a rare few days to recuperate before they’re sent back out into the field. Amongst other things, the days of relaxation give them all a chance to catch up on the mail that has been sent here in their absence.

Steve’s letters have been vague and concerning of late. He doesn’t mention Bucky’s family once, even though Bucky knows that his mother will have invited Steve around for dinner almost every day in his absence. Even though he promised he would check up on them and let Bucky know that they were doing fine. He doesn’t mention his commissions or searching for the more permanent job he had been convinced he would be able to find with New York emptied of working-age men. He doesn’t mention their neighbours, or his art classes, or any of the minutia of Brooklyn life that had dominated his early letters, and had made Bucky feel nostalgic and comforted at the same time. Most shockingly of all, he doesn’t mention being sick, not once. He hasn’t mentioned having so much as a cold in any of his letters since Bucky went away. Steve never liked to moan and dwell on his poor health, but he never made any attempt to pretend or hide it from Bucky, either. Why would he start now?

Instead of anything Bucky recognises from their Brooklyn life, he makes vague, unsubstantiated references to making ‘new friends’. He mentions that he has been seeing a new doctor, but doesn’t elaborate on what exactly the doctor specialises in or what is ailing him at the moment. He says he has been doing some ‘travelling’ but fails to mention where, or with what god damn money.

Bucky recognises evasive language and attempts at avoiding an issue when he sees it – he’s been lying to Steve about where most of their money comes from for years, and he’s damn good at it.

Steve is not.

It worries him, and his base level of worry for Steve’s wellbeing is already pretty high. The content of the letters makes him feel like Steve’s in over his head in something bad. If it weren’t for the little drawings included with the letters in Steve’s signature style, he’d be convinced they weren’t from Steve at all.

“Letter from your Ma?” Danny asks as he perches beside Bucky on the low wooden fence on the edge of camp, rifle propped up beside him in easy reaching distance. Bucky’s watch shift is almost over, but it’s safe for them to talk here. It’s not unusual for soldiers to keep their buddies company during mundane watch duty rotations, and they’re stationed on the very edge of camp, away from prying eyes. When he looks back at Danny, there’s a little frown forming between his eyebrows, and Bucky doesn’t quite understand what’s put it there until he realises that _he’s _frowning hard enough to give himself a headache, glaring down at the letter like he can set it on fire with his eyes alone.

“From Stevie,” He replies, forcing himself to relax his expression even as he struggles to dispel the concern he feels.

“You’re real close, huh?” Danny says amicably, not really phrased as a question, “I never really had close pals like that. Guess my brother doesn’t really count.”

Bucky hums affirmatively, folding the paper in half so he doesn’t have to look at the words anymore.

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re close,” He responds, running his nail back and forth over the crease in the paper until it’s sharp enough to cut. And then, more quietly; “I miss him.”

More than anything, he wants to break down and let it all out to Danny. About realising he was in love with Steve as a kid, watching Steve gently whisper to Bucky's newborn sister and hold her with delicate artists hands. About not fully processing what that meant and not realising he was queer until a whole year later, with his tongue down some dame's throat but his mind on Stevie. About pining and longing and waiting fora sign of reciprocity that he knew deep down would never come. About missing Stevie like a limb, even though he wakes up every morning filled to the brim with gratitude that Steve isn’t out here with them. Danny might be the first person that he can genuinely tell anything too – for all he trusts Steve with his life, there are still topics that he knows he can never share with him. First and foremost is the topic of Steve himself.

But this thing between him and Danny is still too fragile for him to declare his undying love for someone else; even if they both know Bucky will never have a chance with Steve. He knows it would hurt Danny, so he keeps a lid on it, yet another aspect of himself he keeps locked up inside.

His resolve to spare Danny from this particular hurt lasts all of 10 seconds, until the other man asks him outright what he was not willing to admit of his own accord.

“Do you love him?” Danny asks plainly in a quiet voice, sounding resigned, as if he already knows the answer. Perhaps Bucky has not been successful in sparing him the pain of that knowledge after all. It throws him, how quickly Danny has been able to see right through the crap he’s spewed about Steve being like a brother to him to get to the truth of the matter.

“Yes,” Bucky replies honestly, because even if the truth hurts them both, he isn’t willing to lie to Danny, “But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t love you.”

He hadn’t really thought about what he was about to say before he went ahead and said it, but now that it’s out there, he knows it’s true. Loving Steve is a constant truth beneath his skin, like the flowing of his blood - it isn’t going to stop until his heart does. But he knows that he will never act upon it. He knows that his love is hopelessly unrequited.

In Brooklyn, he had never let any of his flings or one night stands become anything more than that. He had told himself that he simply wasn’t interested in a serious relationship, or that it would have been too difficult, too unsafe. In reality, he had known that no one would ever measure up to Steve, and his heart and mind were unable to stray too far from those big blue eyes while they still slept in the same bed.

But here, halfway across the world from Steve, he feels a spark of that same feeling he first identified when he was 12; watching Steve hold Bucky’s youngest sister and thinking _I want to spend my life with you. _Maybe here and now, with this physical distance between them, something new can bloom.

_That doesn’t mean I couldn’t love you._ It’s not _I love you _or even _I will love you_. There’s no commitment or promise inherent in his words. But it speaks of potential and possibilities that have never been an option before. He thinks, for the first time, he could love someone else.

And _god_, Danny is really making it easy to fall in love with him.

Danny’s head snaps up at his words, and the dismay that had marred his handsome features turns to uncertainty.

“I don’t wanna be second fiddle to nobody,” He tells Bucky cautiously, choosing each word with care, “But I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me. I could- I could love you, too.”

“You’re not – He isn’t –“ Bucky chokes out a noise of frustration, unable to get his words to line up in the right order to explain how he feels. Taking a deep breath and looking around to make sure the soldier coming to relieve him of watch duty isn't on his way yet, he tries again. “You’re not second best. I feel – I know we haven’t known each other long but I feel – “

He cuts himself off again, overwhelmed by the scope of his feelings but unable to describe them accurately. Danny simply nods, however, like he understands the emotions that lie behind the failed sentence. Like he feels it too.

“It’s real, this – between us. It’s real. I’m not passing the time in between seeing him, or trying to replace him, or finding someone like him to play pretend with. This isn’t anything to do with him,” Bucky spits out finally, clutching onto his letter so hard the paper threatens to tear, “This is just you and me. And it’s real.”

Danny looks touched, allowing a little of the tension to drop from his shoulders in relief. After a quick surreptitious glance over his shoulder, he peels one of Bucky’s hands away from the letter and squeezes it tightly between his own large hands. With gentleness uncharacteristic for a soldier, he brings Bucky’s hand up to his lips and places a tender kiss against his battered knuckles. It’s dangerous, as exposed as they are, but the sweetness of the action makes honest to god butterflies start fluttering in his stomach, and he can feel himself blushing like a schoolgirl. If Becca could see him now, she’d laugh herself hoarse.

“Yeah,” Danny whispers, dropping his hand as the next soldier approaches to relieve Bucky of his watch, “It’s real for me too.”

* * *

The dynamic between them seems to shift after their conversation, as if Steve were the final roadblock standing in their way. Now that Bucky’s feelings are out in the open, Danny no longer seems to be controlled by the uncertainty and hesitancy that once coloured his movements.

Danny is surer when he touches him now, not the nervous, fumbling young boy with a crush he has appeared to be in their first few weeks in France. Now, he doesn’t stutter through opportunities to tell Bucky that’s he’s perfect, and his hands don’t shake when he gets the chance to stroke his fingers along Bucky’s jaw without the watchful eyes that constantly follow them seeing.

The other men that have had him have been for money, or for mindless sex, two things Steve could never give him. But this is something else. They’ve barely fooled around, but the looks they share feel more intense than the most passionate, overwhelming sex he’s ever had. He feels –

He _feels. _That’s the problem.

As a baby, Bucky had almost never cried. His Ma would reminisce about his perpetual silence every time they were kept up by a screaming baby during his sisters’ infancy, both son and mother desperately trying to shush the crying babies to avoid his father’s wrath. She longed for the peace and quiet in the midst of his sisters’ tantrums, but at the time, she had been desperately worried for him, and had paraded him in and out of different doctors’ offices as many times as they could afford, convinced something must be wrong with a baby that simply didn’t cry.

“But there was nothing wrong with you at all,” his Ma would say, “You were just quiet.”

_Nothing wrong with you at all, _as if his strangeness as a babe in arms hadn’t been the first sign of the _wrongness_ that has permeated him ever since, colouring the way his eyes lingered a little too long on men, the way he could lie as easily as breathing, the ease with which he delivers bullets between the eyes of young men and feels nothing at all.

As a child, teenager, and adult, Bucky could count on his fingers the number of times he had cried.

Softly, holding his youngest sister in his arms shortly after her birth, drowning between the clashing tides of his joy and pride and anxiety and fear, thinking about the way the men at the docks spoke of women as objects and possessions, the possibilities and potentials that would be denied to her, the restless anger of his father that would, unless Bucky could protect them all, reach her skin as it had his own.

Desperately, several times, over Steve’s prone body when he was so close to death that the doctors could no longer look Bucky in the eye and offer hollow reassurances; the only thing that could consistently bring him to tears and leave him gasping between the sobs wrenching free from his lungs.

Brokenly, the first time he had been forced to do something truly terrible to keep himself and Steve alive and fed. Bucky never cried after that first time, learning to separate his mind from his body as he let whoever had spare cash use him as they wish without Bucky needing to be mentally present.

And silently, curled up in the corner of their apartment that was furthest from Steve’s sleeping form, the night he had received his draft papers, shaken from nightmares (or prophecies) of Steve sick and dying with no one to take care of him, of his sisters starving, of his mother working herself to the bone to try and support the family without him.

Always alone, with the only living creatures present too young or sick or lost in their own pleasure to truly see his tears. Bucky has never fallen so low as to cry in front of another person, and his tears have always been dragged from him by the most extreme of circumstances.

So when he breaks down into ragged sobs in front of Danny for no apparent reason, Bucky can’t tell which one of them is more shocked.

If he’s going to have some kind of meltdown, he’s at least lucky it didn’t happen in front of the other men. They’re alone, on patrol around the perimeter of their makeshift camp for the night, too close to the others to be truly comfortable but far enough away to talk quietly amongst themselves. But they’re meant to be keeping watch – this isn’t the time or place for him to finally crack and lose his damn mind. Germans could be sneaking up on them _right now_ and they would have no idea until the bullets hit them. Danny’s too preoccupied trying to figure out what the hell is happening. Bucky is too preoccupied being hysterical.

It had been such a trivial thing that had set him off.

“You know, I never looked twice at a fella before you,” Danny had said. It was meant as a compliment, a harmless little piece of trivia, but it sits with Bucky like a splinter, growing ragged and infected the longer he lets it stay inside him. 

His father had said that, and the men at the docks. That queers were like predators, seducing and corrupting honest, god-fearing family men and turning them into queers, too. Like it was a disease that was catching. Bucky had never bought into that – he thinks it was just a way for men like his father to make sense of finding out their good, honest, happily married friends were secretly carrying on with rent boys or frequenting pansy bars. After all, he’d been sleeping in the same bed as Stevie for nearly 10 years, and had been in love with him for longer, and Steve had never been corrupted despite the intensity of Bucky’s desire for him. But the existence of Danny makes him doubt his position on the matter. Danny had never so much as thought about another man – until Bucky. If Danny survived the war, would he be able to go back to girls, to get married and start a family like he deserved? Or had Bucky tainted him forever? If Bucky cut him loose now, could he go back to being normal, or was the damage already done?

The selfish part of him doesn’t really care. He struggles to think about the future when their present feels so temporary. The rest of him cares far, far too much.

It’s one more thing to feel guilty about, and he adds it to the pile he’s been constructing for most of his life. The pile has grown like weeds since his arrival in Europe – and even more so since this thing with Danny started. This last piece of guilt seems to be just one too many for his fragile mind to take, and the whole pile has come crashing down around him at the worst possible time. Jesus, he might have finally cracked. It's been a long time coming, after all.

“Uh,” Danny says eloquently when Bucky first turns his face away and lets out an undeniable sob seemingly apropos of nothing, “Are you – is this happy crying?”

Bucky tries his best to respond but all that he’s able to force out is a mournful noise, like a kicked dog.

“Not happy crying, then,” Danny quips nervously, entirely unsure of what is going on or how to make it stop. He wrings his hands for a second, looking hesitantly over his shoulder to check that German and American soldiers alike are keeping their distance, then pulls Bucky to his chest like a child.

“Oh, baby,” He says sympathetically, placing a firm hand on the back of Bucky’s head to tuck the shorter man’s face into his neck, “It’s alright. I’ve got you.”

It’s the guilt that has him.

He feels guilty that Danny was normal before Bucky laid his hands on him and made him queer, too. He feels guilty for what he feels for Danny, like he’s betraying Steve by falling for someone else. He feels guilty for loving Steve, like he’s leading Danny on or using him in Steve’s stead. He feels guilty for never telling Steve so many secrets about who he really is, knowing he’ll probably never get the chance and will die a liar. He feels guilty for paying for Steve’s food and medicine with money he got from doing unspeakable things – money he knows that Steve would rather starve than take. He feels guilty for being glad that Steve is sick and weak and can never achieve his dream of being a soldier. He feels guilty for reading Steve’s letters about new friends and travel and thinking the worst, instead of being happy that Steve isn’t trapped in Brooklyn, alone and sick like Bucky thought he would be. He feels guilty for being too much of a coward to tell the draft office that he’s queer. If he’d taken the blue slip he could have stayed in Brooklyn, and made sure his sisters and Ma and Steve were fed and clothed and safe. He feels guilty for leaving them, but he also feels guilty every time he wishes he was back in Brooklyn, knowing that that would mean never meeting Gabe and Dugan and especially Danny. He feels guilty that he’s back to believing that he isn’t gonna survive the war, and he feels guilty that, even with the possibility of a future with Danny on the horizon, he doesn’t really care.

He can barely feel any guilt for the lives he’s taken, and that makes him feel like a monster. It makes him cry harder.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Danny is saying, in a tone of voice that suggests he would happily kick his own ass right now, and if Bucky has to feel guilty about Danny feeling guilty right now he might explode.

“It’s not you,” He stresses to Danny, suddenly frantic and needing Danny to listen, to understand what he’s getting himself into, “There’s something wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you at all,” Danny tells him firmly, frowning with concern and unconsciously echoing Bucky’s Ma, “You’re perfect.”

It’s so far from the truth that Danny can’t possibly believe it, but he sounds sincere. His hand is warm and heavy but undemanding on the back of Bucky’s neck, just as it had been on the night they first met. Jesus, he’d been in the middle of a breakdown then, too – he’d been fucked up before they’d even set foot on European soil and had guns pressed into their hands. He doesn’t understand how Danny could have fallen for him after that kind of first impression. He doesn’t understand how Danny could have fallen for him at all. But the warm hand on his neck and the soft, comforting whispers in his ear indicate that by some freak miracle, he has. 

“I’m sorry,” He chokes out, burrowing his cold nose into the collar of Danny’s coat like they’re not the only line of defence between their sleeping men and Nazi snipers. He’s not sure what he’s apologising for, exactly; crying like a baby, or everything else about himself?

They could stand there for seconds or hours, for all he knows. The crook of Danny’s neck blocks out the sights and sounds of the forest and it feels like a safe haven; somewhere he can try and calm down. He breathes in the rhythm Danny had shown him that first night they met, when he had worked Bucky through what must have been a panic attack but felt like a near-death experience, and lets Danny stroke his back soothingly. Slowly, the heaving sobs that rack his chest lessen and his breathing evens out into something resembling normal as he drinks in the intimacy of their position. He feels safe in Danny’s arms, even when they aren’t paying the slightest lick of attention to the literal war going on around them and are standing out in the open like sitting ducks.

“Do you feel better?” Danny asks him gently when he too notices Bucky’s breathing return to normal. He tilts Bucky’s head up to meet his eye once the tears have mostly stopped falling, and even in the dark Bucky can see the dark stains his tears have left on Danny’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” he replies honestly, wiping at his eyes, “It was kind of cathartic, actually.”

“Maybe I’ll try it sometime,” Danny says as he huffs out a small laugh and attempts to fix Bucky’s mussed brown hair with tender hands.

“Please don’t,” Bucky answers with a shaky smile, “I think this relationship can only handle one of us being batshit crazy at a time.”

Danny smiles so brightly at the word 'relationship' that it takes everything in Bucky not to lean over and kiss him right there and then - but they're too close to the end of his watch duty to risk it. He settles for pulling Danny's helmet down over his eyes with juvenile affection and smiling back just as brightly, feeling a little better in the aftermath of his fit of hysterics.

He wants to say _thank you _or _you deserve better than a mess like me _or _I love you_, but it doesn't feel like the right time, not when he's still vibrating with tension and residual tears sting his eyes. 

Above them, a full moon is rising, and it feels like another omen – though he still doesn’t believe in that kind of thing. Maybe it was the moon that bought about his meltdown – people are meant to get a little crazy around the full moon, right? Maybe, when the moon begins to wane, he’ll be fine.

Maybe there’s nothing wrong with him at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for period typical homophobia, internalised homophobia, references to prostitution and domestic abuse, suicidal ideation and some sort of ableist language and notions that Bucky uses to describe his own mental health, which is poor to say the least.


	4. Lunar Eclipse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for content warnings.

They’re pinned down when it happens. Further into enemy territory than they have any right to be, edging through the Italian forest towards the Austrian border. They’re not even together, is the worst thing – hunkered down in separate, hastily dug trenches with an expanse of open field between them that feels infinite.

It was inevitable, Bucky thinks. He hadn’t really thought any of them were going to live through this endless, bloody war that just takes and takes and takes. He hadn’t thought Gabe was going to get to go back to college and get another degree to stick it to those who looked down on him. He hadn’t thought Dugan was going to finally ask his girl to marry him. He hadn’t thought he and Danny were going to go home and find a nice farmhouse in the country where they could live happily together without being disturbed. But he had thought – had _hoped­ – _that when a German bullet finally found its target and took one of them out, it would be him first.

He keeps an eye on the trench he knows that Danny is pinned down in, even though he knows there’s nothing he can do from here if they do run into trouble. But it soothes him, just a little, to see that there are no bodies being carried out of Danny’s trench or desperate cries for a medic. There doesn’t seem to be anything unusual going on in that side of the trench, so it comes as some surprise when men suddenly pour over the top, running towards their position.

“Are they crazy?!” Gabe calls over the sound of gunfire, as they watch men throw themselves from the shelter of the trench into No Man’s Land, dumfounded. The reason for their actions becomes obvious as an almighty explosion erupts from the trench the men had just flung themselves out of.

When the flames from the grenade rise, they’re tinged unnaturally blue.

“What the fuck was that?” Dugan breathes beside him, but Bucky can’t bring himself to care about anything other than finding Danny’s face in the swarm of men flinging themselves towards the nearest Allied trench.

“Give them some covering fire,” He orders, hearing the murmur of the command being passed down the line before the men do just that. He lines up his own rifle, suppressing a full-body flinch as another explosion shakes the trench. One of the soldiers doesn’t get out of the way fast enough, and the flames consume him, the unnatural blue burning so hot that when the illumination dies down there’s nothing left of him at all.

Two of the men reach them with relative ease and a tremendous burst of speed, wide-eyed and panicked as Dugan reaches up and drags them down into the relative safety of the 107th’s trench. Others aren’t so lucky, and Bucky and his unit can only sit idly and try to cover the remaining men as they watch soldier after soldier go down hard from German sniper fire. 

When he finally sees Danny through the smoke and gunfire and darkness, he’s standing out in the open. He looks like he’s attempting to free one of his men, a middle-aged soldier from the 100th who has gotten his leg caught in the barbed wire buried in the mud all around them. The two men are totally exposed to enemy fire, and Bucky’s heart drops to his stomach.

“Come on!” He screams at the top of lungs, but he knows there is no way Danny can hear him from here, and even if he could, he would never leave a man behind.

Danny's efforts are too little too late, however, as a shot rings out and the trapped man’s body goes rigid and then limp in quick succession, eyes staring unseeing at his would-be saviour. The bullet between the eyes makes Danny take a horrified step back, dropping the body into the maze of barbed wire and mud he was trapped in.

In a horrible way, it makes Bucky’s body sag with relief. _Leave him, please, there’s nothing you can do. Come back to me. _

Danny seems to come to the same conclusion because he turns on his heels as quickly as he can and starts making his way towards Bucky’s position, trying to keep his body low to the ground. His focus is entirely on the safe haven of the closest Allied trench, where Bucky is screaming out for him to hurry, heart rattling with anxiety. Danny takes one, two steps forward, and for a second it really does look like he’s going to make it.

The world stops, in the way it always seems to in his Ma’s terrible romance novels. The world stops when the heroine sees her one true love for the first time, everything else in the world quietening and fading away. The world stops, and suddenly he is the only thing that is in focus, and it feels as though there is nothing but her and her lover in the world. It’s an overused cliché, and nothing like how people actually experience the world. It didn’t stop when Bucky met Steve or Danny. He highly doubts it stopped when his mother met his father.

But when the bullets meet Danny’s chest, then arm, then thighs, the world stops. He’s 20 feet away, with screams and explosions and gunfire directly in his ear, but Bucky can hear the soft, pained exhale that Danny lets out involuntarily. He can hear the clunk of Danny’s rifle as it falls from his slackened grip and hits the ground, the catch of the fabric of his jacket on the barbed wire he falls into and the squelch of the mud beneath his body when it finally lands after an eternity falling down.

Bucky shouldn’t be able to hear these things in the middle of a firefight. But he can; because the world has stopped.

He becomes aware that he’s screaming Danny’s name, over and over with increasing volume and desperation, as if shouting loud enough could make Danny rise to his feet and walk it off like the joke that this has to be. He becomes aware that he is scrambling up and out onto the battlefield, and the only thing stopping him from reaching Danny are the two strong sets of arms dragging him back down into the relative safety of the trench. Dugan has his arms wrapped around Bucky from behind, throwing his full weight over the smaller man to save him from himself. Gabe is in front of him, trying to pin his arms where he is lashing out wildly and pleading for him to see reason;

"He’s dead, Sarge, I’m sorry. He’s dead."

He struggles, lashing out and wriggling wildly like a fox caught in a trap, delivering a sharp elbow to Dugan’s rib cage and flinging a fist out in front of him that Gabe barely manages to duck.

The image of Steve on his death bed for the third time, being read his last rites once again by the sympathetic old priest, flashes unbidden before his eyes, for all he promised himself he would never compare him to Danny. If he had given up on Stevie then, if they had accepted the verdict of others that death was inevitable and pounding at their door…

“I can save him,” he tells Dugan, voice surprisingly steady and laced with sudden conviction, “Please,_ I can save him.”_

As soon as he has spoken the words aloud, he knows that they aren’t true – he’s seen men die from infected blisters and bumps to the head over the last few months, let alone a burst of gunfire to the chest. It’s too dark to see how many German bullets wracked his lover’s body, even as he strains against Dugan and the dusk to see him, but he knows with the instincts of a sniper, a trained killer, that it is too many to live through.

“Sarge, I’m sorry,” Dugan is saying gently into his ear, arms gripping his waist tightly, keeping his head below the edge of the trench, “He’s gone, Buck. You’ll die too if we let you go over there.”

_Yes, yes, let me, _he thinks, struggling even harder in Dugan’s sturdy grip but making no headway, _I’ll die too, it doesn’t matter_. The horrified look Gabe and Dugan share over his head tells him that he has spoken these desperate thoughts aloud, but he can’t bring himself to care about what they think of him right now.

He never told Danny that he loved him. He must know - must have known. But he never said the words aloud. Never said it back. He'll never get the chance, now, not unless he can get to him.

“I can’t just leave him there, _please,_” He cries, pleading and kicking and straining against Dugan’s firm hold, fists pounding against Gabe’s chest.

It’s lucky, Bucky thinks, that Dugan and Gabe are here with him – not because they are stopping him from killing himself, but because his love for them is the only thing stopping _him _from killing _them. _Bucky feels cold with the sudden absolute certainty that if it were anyone else keeping him from Danny, he would have slid the knife in his booth between their ribs the second they began to hold him back, fellow soldier or not. He sees with startling clarity that if the hands on him were not attached to Dugan’s shock of red hair or Gabe’s warm brown eyes, he could have - _would _have - killed one of his own, and felt absolutely nothing at the motion. It’s as though whatever portion of his brain handles emotions has shrunken down like a starved stomach, and can now only handle one feeling at a time. Everything outside of his utter anguish and desperation to get to Danny fades into an oppressive numbness, and the quiet and stillness of that lack of feeling tempts him in as it has so many times before.

They're right, he knows. Danny is gone. His green eyes are open, staring unseeing into the cold Italian night.

But oh god, it hurts_, it hurts, _and if they won’t let him die then he’ll find another way out, to a place where they can’t follow him, where he can’t _feel_ this.

His body goes limp in Dugan’s arms with a suddenness that spooks both his friends, and they lean over him in concern so quickly they narrowly avoid bumping heads, fearing a stray bullet has struck him. Objectively, Bucky knows that the mud seeping into his uniform is cold and slimy, and the tears in his eyes are stinging. He knows that the sharp edges of his gun are pressing painfully into his thighs where it lays forgotten across his lap, and that Gabe’s hands are warm and careful when they slide over his cheeks and jaw, begging Bucky to look at him. He can’t feel these things, though, not here. He’s damn near perfected the art of slipping away in his waking hours when the pain or shame or humiliation gets too intense; he can vacate his body to allow someone else to use it and slip back in when they are finished, as though he were there all the while. 

Before, in Brooklyn, going away was a defence mechanism reserved for the roughest of clients. Since shipping out, he has found himself disappearing without meaning to and coming back to a concerned heat in Danny's eyes that mirrors the fear he himself feels at losing himself, and losing time, quite so often. What felt like a blessing, even a talent, in alleys and motel rooms came to scare him in the forests of Europe. If he disappeared in the middle of a firefight, would his body make the shot without him? Could he stay present enough to take care of his boys, to watch Danny’s six like he promised he would?

He doesn’t need to watch Danny’s six now, and all of a sudden the ability to retreat into himself feels like a blessing again. There is a thick pane of glass between him and the world, blurring the colours of blood and fire and muffling the sounds of war. Danny’s body is so far away he can barely see it, even though they haven’t moved. He can’t feel anything at all.

He isn’t here.

They are shouting at him, Gabe and Dugan, but he can’t hear them. His blue eyes are open and unseeing, with as little life and awareness left in them as Danny’s. He’s stopped struggling entirely, and Dugan has released him from the circle of his arms now he sees Bucky is no longer trying to throw himself into No Man’s Land. If Bucky could feel anything, he thinks he would miss the warm, safe embrace of his friend’s arms around him.

The stinging backhanded slap that Gabe delivers to his left cheek catches Bucky off guard, and if the ragged gasp from behind him is anything to go by, it shocks Dugan in equal measure.

He comes back to himself with a gut-wrenching sob and a feeling not unlike waking from a dream in which you were falling, trying to parse your stationary position with the sensation of hurtling down, down, down.

He imagines himself falling from where he was watching above their heads, crashing through the canopy roof of the forest and landing beside Danny’s lifeless body, crawling back into his own on broken, crippled limbs. The sensations come back to him all at once; the mud and cold and horror and pain.

And it’s bad, _it’s bad, why couldn’t they let him die?_

They’re talking to him again, but this time he can hear. He can hear _everything_; the deafening roar of the guns and click of empty barrels, the soft moan of injured boys to their right, the quiet sobs that could well be coming from him. He can see the slick red of blood mixed into the thick brown mud and dripping from the barbed wire whenever a shell explodes and lights up the field in a sick imitation of the Fourth of July. He can see the way that Danny’s beautiful green eyes are vacant like fish at the market and the way his chest doesn’t move at all.

“You can’t do that now,” Gabe is telling him in a voice shaking with sympathy, “You can’t go away right now, Sarge, we’re under fire.” It’s the same voice the field surgeons use when they tell a young, healthy soldier that they have to amputate a limb. _This will hurt, and you may never be the same, but it has to be done._

It has to be done.

“Sarge, we know what he was to you,” Gabe whispers, and Bucky can’t feel any of the fear or panic that such a statement would normally bring, the utter anguish drowning out every other thought or emotion. Gabe has got both hands pressed firmly to the sides of Bucky’s face, holding his head steady to try and force eye contact between them as he continues, “But you can’t help him. You have to let him go. I’m so fucking sorry, Sarge.”

He can’t breathe, and he thinks he hasn’t been able to for a while if the way that Dugan is rubbing his back with surprising tenderness is anything to go by, but he is noticing it now for the first time. He wishes his breathing would really stop, instead of this poor imitation of suffocation his body is inflicting on him, allowing only choked lungful’s of smoke-tinged air in and punching them out of him just as fast.

But his breathing won’t stop; his friends won’t let it. They won’t let him die and they won’t let him go away. He’s painfully, terrifyingly _present_, and there isn’t anything in the world he can do about it.

_It has to be done._

Someone is making a horrible keening sound, and though his eyes are pulled magnet-like to Danny’s prone form, his lover’s mouth remains closed and his chest remains still. He thinks, perhaps, the noise is coming from him. Gabe and Dugan have backed off a little, giving him a precious few inches of space to breathe, but he can still feel the warmth of both of their bodies, ready to jump back to holding him down at the first sign he’s about to do something reckless. But the time for jumping out of their foxhole and throwing himself into the mess of barbed wire has passed. Instead, he tightens his shaking fingers on his rifle as Gabe and Dugan do the same, shuffling back into their positions and lining up their next shots. He realises with a terrifying flash that he’s _in charge_ here, in the absence of the higher-ranking officers who sit far behind allied lines with their whiskey and radios and claim credit for their triumphs. The men on the front, some of them only boys, look to him as their Sergeant, and he’s in the midst of a soul-shattering nervous breakdown, flat on his back with a likely empty gun and a thousand-yard stare. He barely knows which way is up.

_What do I do?_ He thinks desperately, reaching out for a god he doesn’t believe in to offer guidance or comfort or to finally, finally smite him for his endless sins.

But a voice in his head that he would recognise anywhere, a Kentucky drawl whispering from behind a shy smile and kind green eyes, replies instead:

_Live._

So he turns. He shoots. He doesn’t stop shooting.

He lives, and he doesn’t stop living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for major character death, suicidal ideation, severe dissociation.  
-  
I wanted this to be brief snapshots from their relationship and Bucky's feelings about himself in relation to it, scenes of how it develops and then the inevitable downfall. The fic ends abruptly because that’s how their relationship ended - Bucky doesn’t really get a chance to heal and move on (at least not until the 21st century) because they’re in constant danger and he just has to push it down and carry on, so I decided not to write any aftermath. There’s a little more on their relationship in [All These Riots of Broken Sound](http://www.archiveofourown.org/works/19266574/chapters/45819442) if you haven’t read that. I may, at some point, write a little fic of Steve and Bucky visiting Danny’s grave during a mission in Europe, post ATROBS, so my boy finally gets some closure and he can share Danny with Steve properly.  
-  
My inspiration for Bucky’s reactions in this scene is based on Toni Collette’s incredible performance in Hereditary after the (spoilers) death of her daughter, where the mental pain of processing her loss is so great she’s rocking back and forth, moaning with how much it hurts, begging to die, basically. It’s a highly disturbing movie but genuinely one of the most powerful representations of grief I can ever remember seeing in film.


End file.
